User blog:SPRSS31565/Vampedia 2 Lil' Red Riding Hood by Sam the Sham and The Pharaohs
Lil’ Red Ridin’ Hood by Sam the Sham and The Pharaohs is a song that tells a times old fairy tale but with a more straightforward and explicit meaning than the one we heard as kids. This song is a representation of the inappropriate sexuality of men towards younger women. Also representing the innocence of these young females and how they shouldn’t trust strangers because of the possibility of those strangers being predators. As the fairy tale goes, the song talks about the wolf spotting Little Red Riding Hood walking alone in the woods. The wolf being the singer. Once he spots and approaches her the first few lines of the song are of the wolf convincing her that the woods are dangerous and that she should walk with him. The song continues with the wolf stringing together compliments while attacking insecurities of being alone. This creates a misplaced trust of Little Red Riding Hood to the wolf. “I’m gonna keep my sheep suit on _ Until I’m sure that you’ve been shown _ That I can be trusted walking with you alone.” This line further instills that these predators can be disguised as nice guys with no ill intent. Yet it is a mask that youths often can not see through. There are similar tales told in different forms that also touch on this topic. One being ''Little Red Hat ''by Christian Schneller which can be found here: http://www.pitt.edu/~dash/type0333.html#italy . Instead of a wolf this time there is an ogre but the result is the same. A misplaced trust and a compliance with a stranger lead to a young girl and her grandmother downfall. With lines such as, “Take off your clothes and get into bed with me!” replied the ogre.” (Schneller) That same compliance lands the young girl into a dire situation. There is the same in ''Little Red Riding Hood ''by Charles Perrault which can be found here: http://www.pitt.edu/~dash/type0333.html#perrault . At the end of the tale the out right stated moral is “Children, especially attractive, well bred young ladies, should never talk to strangers, for if they should do so, they may well provide dinner for a wolf.” (Perrault) Similar to the song, this is a predator going after a young girl, who could be taken advantage of. Further stating that the wolf could have a mask of good qualities, much like the sheep suit in the song. With this common theme there is a connection to gender roles and their sexuality. Women in earlier eras were seen as needed to keep pure and maintain higher morals. Like Kathryn Hughes wrote about in her article ‘Gender roles in the 19th centery’, which can be found here: https://www.bl.uk/romantics-and-victorians/articles/gender-roles-in-the-19th-century , “Women were considered physically weaker yet morally superior to men,” (Hughes). So women were the ones who needed to be kept in focus of being safe from strangers especially with men having a lower moral value thus more likely to take advantage of younger women. This all comes full circle with a combination of these gender and sexuality roles and the moral of the song being that stranger (male predators) may try and take advantage of younger women and that they should be weary of those situations. Category:Blog posts